One of the things I like most about jazz is that it has become a truly global musical language. Here are three jazz discs I’ve been enjoying a lot this season. The musicians are from all over the world. There’s Anat Cohen, who is based in New York but is Israeli born and raised and currently playing mostly Brazilian music; and the Enrico Rava Quartet from Italy, playing all originals by Rava, a master of jazz trumpet; and the Kari Ikonen piano trio from Finland (and Armenia) playing everything from Armenian folk tunes to Finnish takes on the tango to a John Coltrane cover.
Anat Cohen, Luminosa
Anat Cohen’s Luminosa is one of the most talked-about jazz releases of the year and is my favorite disc of 2015. I only discovered the New York-based, Israeli-born reed player with her 2012 release Claroscuro but she’s been recording since 2005. This album focuses on her love of Brazilian music, particularly choro (pronounced something like “SHO-ru”), a style that originated in the 19th century as a combination of various classical, folk and popular forms. It’s reportedly complex to play right but easy to listen to.
Although in terms of personnel this disc is a bit of a hybrid, it comes off as a unified whole. A couple of the tracks feature her quartet Choro Aventuroso, herself and three Brazilians: Vitor Gonçalves on accordion and piano; Cesar Garabini on seven-string guitar; and Sergio Krakowski on the pandeiro hand drum. These are the lushly romantic six-minute “Ternura” and the classic Brazilian piece “Espinha De Bacalhau.” You can see and hear a stunning rendition of this tune from the quartet’s appearance on the prestigious Jazz at Lincoln Center program.
The rest of this disc features her touring band — Jason Lindner on keys, Joe Martin on bass and Daniel Freedman on drums — and most tracks include one or more Brazilian guests. The piece that has gained the most attention, deservedly so, is Cohen’s creative arrangement of a dance tune called “Putty Boy Strut” by electronica wizard Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison). That’s one of three non-Brazilian pieces on this date. The others are Cohen’s more-or-less straight-ahead “Happy Song,” and the amazingly engaging closer “The Wein Machine” on which she plays tenor and Gilad Hekselman wrings out a fluid electric guitar line.
Cohen’s third original is a sweet Brazilian tune called “Ima” and the final one is the stunning bossa “In The Spirit Of Baden.” The remainder include two slow and lovely Milton Nascimento tunes, the opener “Lilia” and my favorite on the album, the 10-minute atmospheric and tuneful “Cais” featuring Cohen on throaty, sexy bass clarinet. Every track has something, usually many things, going for it, including Cohen’s cross-cultural blending of snippets of klezmer with blues and Brazilian forms. But mostly this disc has Cohen’s deceptively natural style going for it. Warm, fluid, smooth, crystal clear tone and technique that is flawless when called for and raggedly right when necessary. She is a natural master of her instruments who also gives the impression that she is joyously learning something new with each breath.
You can listen to “Putty Boy Strut,” (Flying Lotus) “Ima,” and “Espinha De Bacalhau” on the Anzic website. And Anat Cohen has a website.
(Anzic, 2015)
Enrico Rava Quartet with Gianluca Petrella, Wild Dance
“Wild” doesn’t necessarily mean fast or crazed, as Italian trumpeter and bandleader Enrico Rava and his four companions demonstrate on Cite>Wild Dance. The bulk of the pieces on this disc are slow to medium tempo, modal or modernist excursions into the art of improvisation, including the title track. After a relaxed, scene-setting introductory section that would be at home on the NYC downtown scene, it breaks into a workout for Rava and his guest Gianluca Petrella on trombone, as the two round out the short piece playing contrapuntal arpeggios while guitarist Francesco Diodati, bassist Gabriele Evangelista, and drummer Enrico Morello lay down a rhythmic and chordal foundation under them.
This ensemble is a multi-generational affair. Diodati is in his early 30s, Evangelista and Morello in their 20s, and Petrella about 40. Suffice it to say that Rava has been playing jazz on his trumpet since well before any of them were born. About half of this generous album of 14 tracks, all Rava originals, were composed for this date, the others were chosen by the ensemble from earlier works, some going back to the 1980s. Among the older pieces is the pulse-raising post-bop of “Infant,” which bursts with lively duetting and counterpoint between trumpet and trombone; Diodati contributes some reverse-looped guitar in the modernist middle section. Rava and Petrella’s horns make achingly beautiful harmonies in parts of “Not Funny,” and in other parts their counterpoint calls to mind Italian Renaissance court dances. With mostly post-bop and modal jazz on tap here, they don’t swing much, but when they do they really do as on “F Express.” The remarkable “Cornette” too is thrumming bop with a modernist noise-off in the middle, the guitar and trombone exploring some truly amazing harmonies as Rava improvises melodic turns around them.
I’m particularly taken, though, with the tuneful “Monkitos” with its long free-form trombone solo section, and a couple of lengthier pieces: “Space Girl” with its lovely melodic line and subtle conversations among the rhythm section; and the closer “Frogs,” a tour-de-force eight-minute wrap-up for just the quartet, sans Petrella.
The inclusion of Diodati on guitar and no piano allows the players to open up this music and air it out, which Rava and Petrella take advantage of as they explore the similarities and contrasts of their two horns. There’s plenty of variety here by an ensemble that clearly is enjoying every second.
You can listen to “Cornette” on the ECM Web page for Wild Dance.
Francesco Diodati has a website. Gianluca Petrella also has a website.
( ECM, 2015)
Kari Ikonen Trio, Beauteous Tales and Offbeat Stories
I was fascinated by the Kari Ikonen Trio, based on its contribution to Ozella’s 2014 compilation The Magic & the Mystery of the Piano Trio, [http://sleepinghedgehog.com/music/various-artists-the-magic-the-mystery-of-the-piano-trio-ballads-lullabies/] and eagerly anticipated this year’s release of the trio’s second Ozella date. Beauteous Tales and Offbeat Stories entirely lived up to my expectations. Finns Ikonen on piano and Markku Ounaskari on drums and Armenian bassist Ara Yaralyan seem insatiable in their exploration of the jazz trio’s possibilities. This album is about equal parts upbeat, sometimes swinging jazz, icy Nordic soundscapes, and pensive, occasionally dark excursions into modernist interpretations of European folk music.
The two most welcoming and upbeat are the opener “L’avant-Midi D’une Elfe” and the Bollywood dance tune cover “Poorab Disa Se.” The former is a swirling cascade of Lisztian runs punctuated by Ounaskari’s assured time-keeping; the latter a dramatic and non-condescending interpretation of a popular form by this very confident trio. Just as assured is the trio’s cover of John Coltrane’s “Countdown,” which finds Ikonen rangeing through a wide variety of melodic and harmonic choices while the bass and piano interact with great subtlety.
Yaralyan plays beautiful arco bass on a couple of these pieces, including the haunting “Astri Pes” (Like a Star) which he arranged, based on a folk-based Armenian composition by Gusan Ashot. The Finns love their tango, so the inclusion of the brief but energetic, pointilist take on the form, “Verhotango,” is de rigeur. The most straightforward piece is the lovely, languidly paced and meditative “Septentrional,” while the closer “The 4th Part of the Harbour Trilogy” skirts modernist music and jazzy balladry, including the second instance of haunting arco bass by Yaralyan and sensitive brushwork from Ounaskari. Tossed in almost as punctuation are a couple of short Finnish modernist tunes just to keep things chilly.
Perhaps tilted a little more toward the “offbeat” than the “beauteous,” the coolly passionate disc as a whole rewards close listening. For a starter, there’s a video on the making of the disk. The Kari Ikonen Trio has a website.
(Ozella, 2015)
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